Relaunch

Though I’ve been out of the coffee industry for over a year, it is time to relaunch Pulling Shots. The number of shots that I’ve pulled in the past 15 months can be counted on one hand. In fact I’m pretty sure I’ve only pulled two shots since I last worked the bar at Phil & Sebastian during the summer of 2008. Those two shots were both made on the same day on Mark Prince’s La Marzocco GS3.

My role in the coffee world now is completely different. I’m not your neighborhood’s mostly friendly, sometimes surly coffee jockey. Now I’m the quiet guy who comes into your cafe and orders a cappuccino, an espresso or perhaps one of the by-the-cup offerings you have on your fresh sheet. I’ll sit down and enjoy that drink, bring my cup back to the counter and move on.

The reason for my departure from blogging is that in being that customer, I thought I had nothing to say. I had fleshed out my positions on many things over the 5 years that this blog has existed. Taking a spin through my oldest posts, I realize how immature at times the content of my writing was (give it a try, it’s amusing if not embarrassing!). I was a pretentious kid trying to make sense of the coffee world. My blog was a soundboard for thoughts I had as to where the coffee industry in my two cities should have headed. Over the past few years, I think we’ve made it to the point where a lot of my concerns have disappeared. Cafes, roasters and baristas are for the large part starting to do the things everyone wanted to see happening back when a multitude of coffee blogs were active. Since then, blog activity has slowly decreased as have the major coffee forums.

However, I would like to start posting again actively. I still drink coffee a number of times daily and still maintain connections with a network of coffee industry folk, many of whom I consider good friends. This blog’s voice will strive to be one of a customer. I have a few posts planned for the next bit, the first of which will be a summary of today’s inaugural Coffeegeek Lab group tasting. I hope to get some more posts up on the cafes in town that are worth checking out. In addition, I hope to get my fledgling food blog up and going again since I wrote a couple of posts for it back in May. I’m a regular on the Western Canada boards at Chowhound and I hope to post reviews and recommendations on my blog where I can be a little more verbose than on Chow.

4 Responses to “Relaunch”

All hail the “customer” blog! Heck, all the hail the blog. In the age of Twitter (and, yes, I have an account too) it’s all too easy to micro-post one’s way to inanity.

It’s easy to forget that even while one is “in the industry”, one is, much of the time, a customer as well. Nothing wrong with that. The wealth of information your palette has absorbed over the past years doesn’t disappear as soon as you leave your post behind the counter. Additionally, there’s nothing preventing either your palette or your opinions from developing further now that you aren’t pulling shots on a regular basis. The coffee’s there and so are all the people and voices that existed before. All you have to do is – as it seems you are doing – keep in contact with all of those people you met while on the other side of the counter, listen to what’s happening, buy the bag/shot of espresso … and taste.

I, myself, although I have not completely left the world of coffee and espresso, have certainly, of late, reduced the time I devote to the profession to focus on other things. But I still brew and I still taste and I still put down, via the keyboard and the inter-tubes, my thoughts, feelings and impressions.

Hey Peter!
Just came back to check out what you were up to – and to see if you’d made any progress. So consider this a small nudge to keep going. Haven’t had a chance to catch up for a while, but hope all is well.
Take care and I look forward to reading your ideas as they flow –
O

Ollie! Good to hear from you. The prime reason for not posting since I last did was because I have in fact returned to the coffee industry! We’ll see if I can dig anything up in the next few days in terms of posting material…

On tap

Bulleit Bourbon
By far the best bourbon available in BC for the price. $35 for a bottle gets you the highest rye content bourbon on the market. Lots of spice and typical bourbon corn sweetness. Excellent on its own, but also makes a mean Old Fashioned. Better than Knob Creek in my books and pretty close to Woodford Reserve.